The Gig Worker Question: Reviving the FTC’s Competition Rulemaking Authority to Protect Collective Bargaining

Document Type

Response or Comment

Publication Date

2024

Journal

American University Administrative Law Review

Volume

76

Issue

4

Abstract

In 2020, then-candidate Joe Biden ran a staunchly pro-labor campaign, promising to become the nation’s strongest labor President in history. Nearly four years later, President Biden sought to prove that he had kept that promise, highlighting the significant gains this administration had delivered to the labor movement. Among those promises was a pledge to ensure that workers in the so-called “gig economy” “receive the legal benefits and protections they deserve.” In line with such promises, President Biden ap pointed Lina M. Khan as Chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in June 2021. Khan was already an academic celebrity, rising to fame as a law student after the Yale Law Journal published her article Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox in 2017. Under her leadership, the FTC promptly issued a policy statement announcing a series of enforcement priorities, including “[p]olicing unfair methods of competition that harm gig workers.”

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